MOVIE REVIEW: The Godfather series

I’ve always liked trilogies and long movies.

Among my favorites that fit these two categories, it would be The Godfather trilogy. My personal favorite of the three would be The Godfather Part II.

I won’t go and summarize each part of the series for it would be a very, very, very long blog entry.

The Godfather movies are about, well, the Godfather. Though a family of criminals, they seem to have a conscience as they would rather deal with gambling and liquor instead of drugs.

Al Pacino plays the part of Michael Corleone perfectly. Marlo Brando is superb and even won an Oscar for the role of Vito Corleone but he refused to accept the award. Robert Duvall is brilliant as the consigliere. James Caan as the annoyingly hot-headed Sonny Corleone plays the part perfectly. Robert De Niro plays the young Vito Corleone really well and won as the Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal as Don Vito Corleone.


The movies display the cold-hearted strategies employed by the Godfather in destroying the people who betrayed him or members of his family. He even permits killing members of his family because of betrayal.

The Godfather is benevolent, asking nothing monetary in return. The Godfather asks for loyalty, which sometimes might be more expensive than money.

If you’re into period movies and into mafia movies, then this is perfect for you.


Get the collector's edition here.


Here's the book.


And this is my noise on my choice.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Book of Eli

My dad wanted to see this movie, The Book of Eli, more than I did but my mom and I went with him to see it. Turns out, that was a good decision.

The futuristic movie starts out with Eli (Denzel Washington) walking around with a backpack in the desert. He has superior fighting skills as displayed when a group of bandits try to ambush him for whatever he has in the backpack. He kills all the bandits and walks on.

He stumbles onto a town and asks the local repair guy to repair something for him in exchange for a few items that we now take for granted like a KFC sauce.

While waiting, he gets set up by a gang of bikers and Eli kills them all. He is then brought to the Boss, Carnegie (Gary Oldman) and is invited to stay and will be given, food and water. Carnegie sends Solara (Mila Kunis) to Eli and Eli refuses her advances and asks her to leave. She begs to stay so that Carnegie won’t hurt her mom. Eli agrees and invites her to eat dinner with him and they pray before eating. Solaris discovers a book with a cross on the front and asks Eli about it but he didn’t want to talk about it.

The following day, Solara prays with her mother before eating breakfast and Carnegie hears them. He forces Solara to answer if Eli was reading a book and she yields and makes a cross with her fingers. Carnegie realizes that Eli has the book that he has been looking for, the Bible and orders his henchmen to stop Eli from leaving.

Fighting ensues and Eli escapes. Solara follows him.

Carnegie eventually catches up to Eli and Solara and gets the book after shooting him. Carnegie takes Solara back but she escapes. She finds Eli and they continue to go West.

In the meantime, Eli gets to the Golden Gate Bridge with Solara and tells the guards that he has the copy of the King James version of the Bible. Solara seems nervous because she knows that they don’t have the book. They meet a curator, Lombardi (Malcolm McDowell) and Eli dictates the whole Bible to Lombardi and dies after the whole thing has been dictated. Lombardi offers Solara sanctuary but she refuses and goes back East, taking Eli’s weapons with her.

================

I truly liked the movie.

I recommend that everyone watch the movie. I won’t be giving away the twist of the movie. It’s up to you to watch the movie. Get the DVD here.

And this is my noise on my choice.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Proposal

I saw this movie last year when it was shown in theaters in the Metro. I believe I saw it with my parents  on one of our Sunday bonding moments.


Really loved the movie the first time I saw it but unfortunately, I wasn’t much into blogging then.


A friend loaned me a dvd and so here’s a review. (“,)


Sandra Bullock plays Margaret Tate and Ryan Reynolds plays Andrew Paxton.


Margaret is a terrorist in the office. She’s rigid and not really mean but so strict that you really wouldn’t push her or be on her bad side. As you can see in the movie, she’s the type of boss whom you wouldn’t be comfortable being in the same room with. Kind of like Miranda Priestly of “The Devil Wears Prada” fame.


She fires an editor because he was not able to make one of his authors do an interview with Oprah whereas she was able to convince the author of doing the interview earlier. Margaret is then called to the boss’ office to find out that she herself is on the verge of losing her job because her work visa has been denied. Andrew interrupts the meeting and Margaret makes up a story how she and Andrew are getting married soon. The bosses are more amused than convinced but tells Margaret to make everything legal.


Margaret and Andrew make it to Sitka, Alaska where Margaret finds out that Andrew isn’t poor as she thought him to be since his family owns practically the whole town.
Adventures ensue. The especially funny one involves Ramone (played by Oscar Nunez – who kind of reminds me of Rob Schneider), an omnipresent citizen of Sitka.


And as they say, it only takes a day to fall in love with someone and being stuck in Sitka together, they get to know each other well and fall in love in four days.


The immigration officer who suspects that the engagement is a sham shows up at Sitka a day before the wedding.


Margaret feels guilty and cancels the wedding on the day itself. She goes back to New York and packs up all her stuff in the office. Andrew gets to the office and proposes to Margaret in front of all the employees. They kiss and go to the immigration office to prove that they really love each other. The end.


I loved the movie so much that I ended up summarizing the movie. I’ve never done so with my previous reviews.


Watch the movie. It’s funny and romantic and worth your time. Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds look great together and have great on-screen chemistry.


Get a copy of the DVD here.


And this is my noise on my choice.

FOR SALE: LANVIN ECLAT D'ARPEGE PERFUME FOR WOMEN

I personally love this scent and I would recommend it to anyone who likes light, floral scents that have staying power. (",)

Price INCLUDES shipping.

Perfume.com describes this perfume as "A soft floral fragrance, Eclat D'Arpege was launched by the design house of Lanvin in 2003. A multifaceted scent using an exciting blend of peach blossom, lemon leaves, lilac and green tea over warm amber and sensual musk, Eclat d'Arpege is a sensitive and mysterious scent choice for her."

Check it out in malls and see that our price is less than the mall price by at least 30%, even if we include the shipping costs.

Delivery Area

Metro Manila P1,950.00 Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao P2,000.00 Tester - Metro Manila Area P1,650.00 Tester - Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao P1,750.00

TECH REVIEW: LAPTOP CQ 40-416 AU

I’ve had my CQ40-416AU for almost 3 months now and I must say, I really love it and I’ve had no major problems so far. 

Look for the specs here.

I have Windows 7 Ultimate as my Operating System. The only small problem I noticed is that I’m having a hard time downloading iTunes but it might be my error instead of the laptop.

Webcam’s great. Music sounds nice. All ports are working. Battery life is great.

The only thing I noticed is that the laptop indeed gets really hot. I’ve had several instances over the past three months wherein my laptop freezes and then I have to reboot. This can happen once a day or as many as three to six times a day. I have still yet to buy a cooling pad.

Maybe it’s the Operating System or maybe it’s part of the specs but I haven’t had any lagging issues so far and I hope nothing comes up. I’ve used this laptop mainly for surfing the web and blogging and a little work. I’ve watched a DVD once and the Hi-Def display doesn’t disappoint.

I’m thinking of getting a skin from Skin It or Decal Skin.

My recommendation: Get this laptop if you want something efficient and powerful yet affordable. Just make sure to get a really good cooling pad to go along with it. Look for the US or European version here.

And this is my noise on my choice.

MOVIE REVIEW: Alice in Wonderland in 3D

I just came home from watching Alice in Wonderland in 3D in Glorietta 4. I did enjoy the movie. The graphics and CGI effects were wonderful. The story...well, it could've used a little more punch. All I can say about the story line is that it's good they took a lot of liberties from the original Disney version of Alice in Wonderland.

Helena Bonham Carter was just so adorable as the Red Queen. Anne Hathaway was so fun to watch as the White Queen. Johnny Depp was um…well, I hardly recognized him but he was effective as the Mad Hatter. Alan Rickman’s voice as the Caterpillar was a little disconcerting since I’ve known him as Snape but it fits him. The Tweedle boys were cute.

There were a few lines from the movie that made good sense but I hardly remember them verbatim now. But one of the main messages of the movie is to believe in yourself and believing the impossible to be possible.

Good movie. You should see it, in 3D or not.

And this is my noise on my choice.

BOOK and MOVIE REVIEW: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

WARNING: The following may contain spoilers for both the book and the movie of the same title: The Lightning Thief (Movie Tie-in Edition) (Percy Jackson and the Olympians)

I decided to do this review as my very first review online only because a) I liked the movie version even before I read the book and b) I liked the book even after I’ve seen the movie.

Wouldn’t you agree that sometimes movies turn out to be better than their book counterparts or vice versa? Like for example, the Twilight series. I’ve read the whole series but the Twilight movies (Twilight and New Moon) didn’t impress me much.

Anyway, let’s get back to business.

Oh, and by the way, I don’t plan on summarizing the book and then analyzing it. I’m just going to give my opinion straight out but the review may contain bits and pieces of the book.

So here goes…

I thought it was a good idea to have seen the movie version first before reading the book. I’d been eying the book for several weeks but was holding off until after I saw the movie. That did not disappoint.

Percy (short for Perseus) Jackson is the main protagonist, apparently with problems with authority except for his mom and Mr. Brunner. I must say that they did a LOT of revisions and were VERY, VERY liberal with the book. For example:

• BOOK VERSION: Percy Jackson is 12 years old
• MOVIE VERSION: Percy Jackson maybe around 15-17 years old as portrayed by actor Logan Lerman.
• BOOK VERSION: Nancy Bobofit as the school bully
• MOVIE VERSION: No school bully
• BOOK VERSION: No funny “this is a pen” dialogue
• MOVIE VERSION: The unforgettable “this is a pen” dialogue.
• BOOK VERSION: Annabeth Chase nurses Percy back to health after the fight with the Minotaur. She also is teammates with Percy during the Capture the Flag game.
• MOVIE VERSION: Annabeth isn’t friendly at all towards Perseus and has a swordfight with him during the Capture the Flag game.
• BOOK VERSION: No Persephone
• MOVIE VERSION: Persephone plays a big part on Percy’s success.

And there are TONS more differences.

I liked both versions. Both versions were funny and action-packed and did not disappoint me. One could exist without the other, unlike, say the Twilight Series. You would be missing out on a lot if you’ve just seen the movie and did not read the books. Or maybe the Harry Potter series, both books and movies, would probably be a better illustration.

But maybe if they’d stuck with the book, it might’ve been a totally different movie. But I’m still really happy with both versions.

On the actors: Logan looks really cute and wasn’t bad at all. Alexandra Daddario who plays Annabeth Chase is gorgeous and is convincing as Athena’s daughter. I wasn’t surprised that Sean Bean is Zeus and Brandon Jackson who plays Grover isn’t as annoying as the one in the book.

So, get it if you will.

And this is my noise on my choice.